Kitchen playtime

Last Tuesday night, my friend Rose joined me for some image-making in the kitchen at Shopfront. Lying on the floor with her eyes closed, I asked her to think about a room/space from her childhood where she felt most comfortable and herself. I then instructed her to project the image of that room (and what it meant to her) onto the kitchen, rearranging it to somehow resemble her childhood space. This could involve moving objects but also using objects in different and new ways. The result was quite amazing.

Reflecting on the exercise, Rose found it difficult to begin with, as she was simply trying to rearrange the kitchen to aesthetically match up with her childhood space (i.e., her bedroom when she was growing up). This was always going to be hard considering how different the 2 spaces are. However, it then became more about approaching the kitchen space in the same way she would have approached her bedroom as a child. For Rose, this is when the exercise became fun as she was able to enter into that “playtime” mindset that would occupy her for hours as a kid.

Anyway, I’ll leave it at that for the time being but stay tuned for a brief overview of my project (so that you actually have a vague idea of what it is that I’m doing…haha).